Requirements Elicitation Techniques

Based on presentations by G. Mussbacher, G.V Bochmann, N. Niu, with material

from: Lethbridge & Laganière, Chapter 7; Bruegge & Dutoit, Chapter 4;
I. Alexander; Amyot 2008-2009; Somé 2008

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 Overview

Elicitation Techniques
• Analysis of Existing Systems
– Documentation, Observation, and Ethnography
• Interviews
• Brainstorming
• Joint Application Design (JAD)
• Prototyping
• Use Cases

• When people talk, listen completely. Most people never

listen.1

[1] Ernest Miller Hemingway (1899-1961) 2

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 Elicitation Techniques
Elicitation techniques
– Stakeholder analysis
– Analysis of existing systems or documentation,
background reading
– Discourse analysis
– Task observation, ethnography
– Questionnaires
– Interviewing
– Brainstorming
– Joint Application Design (JAD)
– Prototyping
– Pilot system
– Use cases and scenarios
– Risk analysis
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 Comparison of Data-Gathering Techniques1
Technique Good for Kind of data Plus Minus
Questionnaires Answering specific Quantitative and Can reach many The design is crucial.
questions qualitative data people with low Response rate may be
resource low. Responses may
not be what you want

Interviews Exploring issues Some quantitative but Interviewer can guide Time consuming.
mostly qualitative data interviewee. Artificial environment
Encourages contact may intimidate
between developers interviewee
and users
Focus groups and Collecting multiple Some quantitative but Highlights areas of Possibility of dominant
workshops viewpoints mostly qualitative data consensus and characters
conflict. Encourages
contact between
developers and users
Naturalistic Understanding context Qualitative Observing actual work Very time consuming.
observation of user activity gives insight that other Huge amounts of data
techniques cannot give

Studying Learning about Quantitative No time commitment Day-to-day work will

documentation procedures, from users required differ from documented
regulations, and procedures
standards

[1] Preece, Rogers, and Sharp “Interaction Design: Beyond human-computer interaction”, p214 5
Analysis of Existing Systems

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 Analysis of Existing Systems (1)

• Useful when building a new improved version of

an existing system
• Important to know:
– What is used, not used, or missing
– What works well, what does not work
– How the system is used (with frequency and
importance) and it was supposed to be used, and
how we would like to use it

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 Analysis of Existing Systems (2)

Why analyze an existing system?

• Users may become disillusioned with new system or do
not like the new system if it is too different or does not do
what they want (risk of nostalgia for old system)
• To appropriately take into account real usage patterns,
human issues, common activities, relative importance of
tasks/features
• To catch obvious possible improvements (features that
are missing or do not currently work well)
• To find out which "legacy" features can/cannot be left out

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 Review Available Documentation

• Start with reading available documentation

– User documents (manual, guides…)
– Development documents
– Requirements documents
– Internal memos
– Change histories
– …
• Of course, often these are out of date, poorly written,
wrong, etc., but it's a good starting point
• Discourse analysis
– Use of words and phrases is examined in written or spoken
language
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Observation and Related Techniques (1)

• Observation
– Get into the trenches and observe specialists “in the wild”
– Shadow important potential users as they do their work
– Initially observe silently (otherwise you may get biased
information)
– Ask user to explain everything he or she is doing
– Session videotaping
• Ethnography also attempts to discover social, human,
and political factors, which may also impact
requirements

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 Observation and Related Techniques (2)

• Can be supplemented later with questionnaires

– Based on what you know now – the results of observation
– To answer questions that need comparison or corroboration
(confirmation)
– To obtain some statistics from a large number of users (look for
statistical significance!), e.g.:
• How often do you use feature X?
• What are the three features you would most like to see?
• Can be supplemented later with interviews
– After getting a better idea of what is to be done, probably some
questions require more detailed answers
– You will not be wasting other people's time or your own
– This is very labour intensive!
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 Ethnography – Overview (1)
• Comes from anthropology, literally means "writing the
culture"
• Essentially seeks to explore the human factors and
social organization of activities  understand work
– Studies have shown that work is often richer and more complex
than is suggested by simple models derived from interviews
• Social scientists are trained in observation and work
analysis
• Discoveries are made by observation and analysis,
workers are not asked to explain what they do
– Collect what is ordinary/what is it that people do (aim at making
the implicit explicit)
– Study the context of work and watch work being done
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 Ethnography – Overview (2)

• Useful to discover for example

– What does a nuclear technician do during the day?
– What does his workspace look like?

• Less useful to explore political factors

– Workers are aware of the presence of an outside
observer

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 Ethnography – Example (1)
• Sommerville et al. were involved in a project where they had to elicit
the requirements of an air traffic control system
• They observed the air traffic controllers in action with the existing
system
• Surprising observations
– Controllers often put aircrafts on potentially conflicting headings with the
intention of fixing them later
– System generates an audible alarm when there is a possible conflict
– The controllers close the alarms because they are annoyed by the
constant warnings
• Incorrect conclusion
– The controllers do not like audible alarms because they close them
• More accurate observation
– The controllers do not like being treated like idiots
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 Ethnography – Example (2)

• Dealers at a stock exchange write tickets to record deals

with old-fashioned paper/pencil method
• It was suggested to replace this with touch screens and
headphones for efficiency and to eliminate distracting
noise
• Study found that the observation of other dealers is
crucial to the way deals are done
– Market position was affected if deals were not continuously
monitored
– Even if only peripheral monitoring takes place
• “Improvements" would have destroyed the very means of
communication among dealers
Source: Preece, Rogers, and Sharp “Interaction Design: Beyond human-computer interaction”
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